


Trepidation

by leoparddapple12



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Mental Illness, Panic Attack, Personification of Anxiety, Personification of mental illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-08-28 11:01:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16722090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoparddapple12/pseuds/leoparddapple12
Summary: There isn't always a cure for an overcrowded mind, but sometimes the most you can do is seek help from someone else.





	Trepidation

**Author's Note:**

> This is an extension with context of a scene referenced in one of my previous TAZ fics; Berceuse.

On some nights it was easier to hide the thoughts that overwhelmed Barry’s mind. But other nights it felt like the darkness threatened to swallow him whole.

Ever since he was a teenager, Barry struggled with episodes of crippling anxiety. They came mostly at night, when the silence of the outside world made the chaos within his brain sound like a cacophony by comparison. The constant rattling of “what ifs” leading him to consider endless roads of possibility with varying degrees of failure or success, and he never quite figured out the best way to silence it completely.

Music helped some, he found. An enchanted music box that played all night long was the best solution, though it was a rare treat that he lost after becoming a part of IPRE. Leaving the window open during the warmer seasons, when the crickets chirped outside and the nighttime noises were plenty loud enough to drown out his thoughts, was the next best thing.

The voyage on the _Starblaster_ was tricky for that for a while. The humming of the bonds engine helped a bit, but it wasn’t quite the same. Depending on what kind of realities they were in, it was harder to blot out the constant barrage of “what if” from his mind.

None of the _Starblaster_ crew knew about his nighttime anxiety episodes for a long time. He made sure to keep it that way at first. He wasn’t planning on bonding with any of the crew members or beginning to associate them with being family. And he _especially_ wasn’t planning on falling hard and fast for the beautiful high-elf woman who often assisted him with his research.

For a little while when their relationship started, Barry didn’t tell Lup about his anxiety. She knew he would get stressed at times, but she was oblivious to his overcrowded mind. For a while, it was because it was easier to push those dark thoughts away when they slept together. Lup made him feel amazing in so many ways, and he supposed that one of those was distracting him from that constant neurosis.

But one night, he realized just like with everything else, that these physical experiences couldn’t keep it back forever. He would later curse himself for thinking that any amount of cascading emotion or physical pleasure would ever be a permanent cure for anything.

In one moment, he was breathlessly laughing, laying on his back on the bed with the sheets tangled at his legs. Lup was beside him with her long blonde hair draped loosely over both of them, and the sweet sound of her settling breath tickling his ear. They looked at each other in their moment of vulnerability; her bright green eyes meeting with his muted blue ones. Within those twin pools of vivid green, he saw a lingering ember of what once was a passionate fire that he knew burned in both of them. 

The next thing he knew, the darkness washed over him. It came completely out of nowhere, just like the waves that would knock him down when his back was turned to the ocean. He went from euphorically laughing to weeping in seconds. It felt like he was miles away from the bed he shared with the love of his life, and for a moment he was scared that he really was trapped in some sort of endless darkness, naked and alone to this monstrous threat that would eat him and tear him apart. He could’ve sworn he heard its ancient, grating breaths and felt its ice-cold stare baring into his body.

“Babe?” It was faint, but he heard Lup’s voice, spiked with worry. It was enough to call him back into her embrace. Cold emptiness replaced with a soft, warm bed. Loneliness exchanged for the presence of his lover beside him, just as exposed as he was.

“Babe?” Lup repeated, sitting up a bit on the bed and brushing her hair out of her face. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

Barry shook his head. “No, Lup. I’m...I’m fine.”

Lup’s brow furrowed in worry. “Don’t lie to me, Barry. You don’t go from laughing to crying in no time when you’re ‘fine’.” The words suggested anger, but her tone betrayed her concern.

He turned to lay on his side. “I...” He sighed, shakily since the tears were still coming, and his throat burned so much it hurt to speak. “I’m scared,” was all he could say, though it was only a futile taste of how he truly felt.

“Scared? Of what?” Lup seemed confused, but she remained engaged as though trying to figure out a way to help him.

“...there’s constant noise in my head. Thousands of ‘what ifs’ for everything. I’m never able to shut it out entirely.”

Lup frowned. “Anxiety?”

Barry nodded with a sniffle. “That’s it. I thought at first just being with you was enough to shut it out, but it’s back and-” A sob crept up and escaped him. He buried his face in his hands, ashamed of the mess he must have looked like to her.

“Barry,” Lup spoke in a hushed voice, reaching to pull him close. He moved his hands away from his face and clung awkwardly to her while she sat up and he was still laying down; his face was buried in the warm flesh of her side.

“Barry, things like this don’t...don’t just go away when you fall in love with someone. And it’s hard. I mean, I’m still stressed about finding the Light of Creation in this plane, and I certainly forgot about it a second ago, but I know the problem’s still gonna be there later.” She started combing her fingers through his hair. “We can’t face all of our problems on our own, and sometimes we can never truly solve them, but if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that facing problems is a hell of a lot easier with someone beside you.”

Barry sighed into Lup, trying not to grip too hard on her waist. “I know...but it’s still hard...it’s awful when your own brain is telling you something and you can’t not listen.”

“Can I try something to help you get back to sleep?” Lup offered. “We need our rest for now, but in the morning we’ll look into more manageable ways to get through this, okay?”

Barry nodded. “Yeah...okay...”

Lup combed through his hair again. “This is a song that my mom would sing to Taako and I when we were little. It’s always made me feel better, and I know it’s not going to cure your anxiety, but I hope it’ll get it to simmer down for the night so you can go to sleep.”

He hadn’t heard Lup sing much, so he wasn’t sure was he was expecting. When what he could only describe as pure magic passed from her lips, he was taken aback. For a moment he couldn’t recognize the language she was singing in, but he didn’t care at the time being. Relief replaced the dread and he sobbed again, not out of grief, but from catharsis.

As he continued to hide his face in her side, he felt one of her hands stroke his head and comb softly through his hair. The touch soothed him, and in combination with the gentle tones of this lullaby, he found himself drifting back to sleep within moments.

It was the best sleep he had in a long time. While he dreamed of nothing, it wasn’t that endless gripping void he had learned to fear throughout his life. It felt more like a large, warm blanket wrapped around him.

When he opened his eyes the following morning, he realized Lup had moved a bit while they slept. Her arms were wrapped around him and his face was nuzzled into her chest now. He grinned a bit at the realization, thinking back briefly to the more exciting part about their night before his sudden panic attack. Until recalling the events of that night he had nearly forgotten entirely that he had an attack at all.

He knew what Lup said the night before was true, that proper intervention was the only way to keep this at bay for long-term, but still he knew there was something that he could rely on to cheer him up if only briefly. While he might curse himself in the future for thinking it was a permanent solution, he always knew it still worked for the moment and that was all that mattered to him.

He moved up a bit in bed, gently grazing Lup’s body with his fingertips, and kissed the tip of her nose. She made a small sound of complaint before her eyes opened, her blissful expression only faltering upon being awoken, and returning once her gaze met Barry’s.

“Mornin’, babe. You feel better?” She pet his hair a little and he leaned into the touch.

“Much better. Thank you.” He leaned in and kissed her again, this time on the lips. It made him perhaps a little too excited when she started kissing back and wrapped her arms around him. At the very back of his mind he could still feel that leftover anxiety staring him down, but knowing he had even one person who loved and cared about him and wanted to help him get through it made the threat much smaller than it had felt to him at any point in his life. What had seen like a giant, ancient beast the night before now seemed like a smaller creature--still threatening but easier to detain.

For the first time in perhaps his entire life, he felt like he could finally take the proper action to conquer this.


End file.
